47. Carl
47. Carl
A bad feeling passes over me, the sort of feeling I used to get back in Afghanistan when we were out on patrol and someone was unaccounted for – someone I had let out of my sight.
‘Everything okay with your mum and dad?’ I ask Maggie.
She looks up, puzzled.
‘Yes, why?’
‘Just it’s a busy time of year,’ I say, aware of how ridiculous I sound, and telling myself to stop being so stupid.
It must be the thought of Sarah arriving tomorrow. Wanting everything to be perfect for her.
‘Right,’ I say to Maggie, grabbing my keys and coat. ‘Time for some last-minute shopping. You okay to hold down the fort?’
‘You? Shopping?’ she asks incredulously. ‘It’s a Christmas miracle!’
She’s right. I hate shopping. But right now I’ll do anything to stop myself from dwelling on the gnawing anxiety in the pit of my stomach.
I ruffle the top of Elsa’s head and head out.
Miraculously, the van starts on the first attempt. And even more miraculously, just as I’m pulling into Otley, another van, identical to mine, flicks its indicator on and drives out of a parking space right in front of the market. I reverse in smoothly and turn the engine off.
Maybe someone up there is looking out for me, after all.
First stop, the cheese shop. I spend ages marvelling at all the different colours and sizes and shapes of something I’ve never given any thought to before in my life – other than to ask for an extra slice of it on a burger.
I don’t know what to choose, because I have no idea what Sarah likes. I don’t even know if she likes cheese. In the end, I pick out a lump of Wensleydale, which is Fridge’s dad’s favourite – he always has it in his sandwiches, with a dollop of Branston Pickle – and some Stilton, because I hear the woman in front of me in the queue tell the shopkeeper it wouldn’t be Christmas without it.
Waiting in line to pay, I think about getting to know what food Sarah likes; the idea of us shopping together, like this, then cooking dinner. Not that I’ve ever cooked before in my life. Imagining this new life with Sarah, I start to feel calmer.
Next, the off-licence – and this time, I know what she likes. Red wine. Pinot Noir, to be precise. That’s what she always drinks.
After buying the wine I go to the supermarket, where I pick up fresh coffee, vegetables, a box of satsumas, some nuts and a medium-sized turkey. Then I put the turkey back and swap it for a large free range one.
I’m not even sure this turkey will fit in the oven, or if the Rayburn will behave itself for long enough to cook it, but I don’t want to risk there not being enough. Besides, we can use the leftovers for sandwiches on Boxing Day – like Fridge’s mum always used to.
Then I remember that Fridge’s mum used to put chestnut and sausage meat stuffing in the sandwiches, and I go back and put some of that in my trolley too. And pigs in blankets that are helpfully stacked in piles next to the stuffing.
And a tub of shop-made gravy. For a fleeting moment I remember the time in Bastion, the day Fridge died, with all of us talking about how to make gravy before we headed out on patrol.
Now, as then, I realize I wouldn’t know how to make gravy if my life depended on it. I’d totally forgotten about that conversation, but thinking about it now, it makes me happy to remember Fridge boasting about how good his mum’s gravy was – to know he had a happy memory floating about in his head that day.
I stop off at the electrical shop, where I buy some white Christmas tree lights and mulled wine scented candles in tins. And then, on a whim, I pick up a huge bunch of lilies and red berries from a metal bucket outside the florist.
Just as I’m heading back to the van, I catch sight of the small jewellery shop on the edge of the market square. There are a couple of awkward-looking guys, clearly undecided, staring hopelessly at the window. But when I look through the glass, I glimpse what I want immediately. A tiny pair of sparkling star-shaped earrings.
The bell above the door rings out with a festive chime as I enter the shop.
I point to the earrings, and while they’re being wrapped, I pick out a silver friendship bracelet for Maggie, too, and a little horseshoe-shaped brooch for Roz, because she always says that horseshoes bring you luck. I get one for Fridge’s mum too.
When I emerge from the shop, the ice-white Christmas lights hanging from the lamp posts around the square have been turned on, and there’s a brass band playing ‘Oh Come, All Ye Faithful’.
There’s an old boy in uniform collecting for the Salvation Army, and I think of Cromwell’s army gathered here, all that time ago, and the loved ones they had left at home. I wonder how many made it back to them for Christmas.
I stuff a tenner into his tin. When he says, ‘God bless you,’ I feel like an extra in some cheesy BBC Dickensian Christmas story, but I don’t care.
‘And you,’ I reply happily, and I wish him a Happy Christmas.
On the drive home I stop off one more time to pick up a tree. I pay the extra for a Nordmann Fir, because the lad selling them says their needles won’t drop. I pick the bushiest and the heaviest and heave it into the back of the van. Its branches spill over the driver’s seat so that, as I drive back to the cottage, I feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a pine forest.
The tree’s spicy, woody scent manages to overpower the van’s usual aroma of wet dog, and it makes me smile as I drive.
It’s the smell of Christmas future, not Christmases past. It’s the smell of possibility …
This time tomorrow, Sarah will be here.